The Case A 2 year old male presents to the Emergency Department with his parents immediately after ingesting an unknown amount of Pina Colada e-cigarette (electronic cigarette) refill liquid (18mg/mL of nicotine). It is a 30mL bottle and there is still some liquid inside. His breath smells of Pina Colada. Topic Overview This case is becoming more and more familiar in Emergency Departments across North America and around the world. E-cigarettes and other …
CJEM Infographic: Prehospital management of uncomplicated SVT
View PostTiny Tips: weakness MADE NICER
Editor’s Note: This is a great mnemonic developed by two Canadian medical students Anali Maneshi and Matthew Cherian. This tool serves as a framework for an approach to a common ED presentation. If you have a tiny tip for us please consider sending it along by following our author instructions here. Geriatric patients make up 20% of all visits to Canadian EDs (1). General weakness, which can have a large differential, is a common …
Welcoming our new Senior Editors
Over the past two years BoringEM has grown in a way that I never could have imagined. The cute little blog with the quirky name has developed an editorial process and attracts >300,000 views each year. This growth is largely attributable to the core editorial staff and the increasingly frequent contributions of its readers. Over time, BoringEM has developed a niche as a FOAM website that is operated by learners and fosters the contributions of learners. …
Boring Question: What is the role of xanthochromia in ruling out SAH?
The Case Your first patient of the shift is a 19-year-old male with “the worst headache ever.” His mother states she’s quite worried because he “never gets headaches.” He had some slight nuchal rigidity, but is afebrile. And as such, you arranged a non-contrast CT Head, which was found to have a normal without signs of intracranial hemorrhage. Now, 12 hours after onset of his headache, and after discussing the risk and benefits …
Could my patient have an Aortic Dissection?
“List top 5 worrisome diagnoses for chest pain” – we’ve all asked this question to junior learners and medical students, and one answer that should always come up is aortic dissection (AD). As emergency physicians we are well versed in the entity, workup and management of AD, but as a fairly challenging diagnosis, I have often found it difficult to decide who needs to be worked up for dissection. During my training I …